WHEN you hear politicians making all sorts of promises and uttering gibberish to a captive audience, you are dead sure the silly political season is upon us.
Southern Eye Editorial
On Sunday we had Zanu PF politburo member Retired Colonel Tshinga Dube saying people of the south should seek reconciliation over the political disturbances of the early 1980s, which left more than 20 000 people dead in Matabeleland and some parts of the Midlands.
Dube, who is aspiring to represent Zanu PF in Makokoba constituency, implored residents of one of the city’s oldest suburbs to vote for President Robert Mugabe’s party in the pending polls, saying Zanu PF holds the keys to meaningful development. He also had the audacity to tell his captive audience, “If you elect us, we will talk to the government and solve this issue”, referring to the post-independence Gukurahundi massacres in the Midlands and Matabeleland.
This is rank madness. Dube appears to have a short memory or is probably taking citizens for political fools. His party has been in power for 33 years now and has not done anything to address the emotive Gukurahundi issue whose ugly scars are still there for all to see. Is this not the same party which superintended over the unleashing of the 5 Brigade, aka Gukurahundi, on the defenceless people of Matabeleland and parts of the Midlands?
It is an open secret that its leaders have refused to apologise over the State-sponsored violence in these two provinces.
Thousands of people have no birth certificates as a result of this callous adventurism by Zanu PF-linked forces.
Lest citizens forget, 5 Brigade used rape on a wide scale as part of State-sponsored terror tactics to cow people.
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We find it hard to believe that mandarins in Zanu PF want people to simply forget the atrocities committed by the Gukurahundi and instead want the people to parachute the party back into power with promises of addressing the emotive issue when it has failed to do so for the past 33 years. This is simply careless political talk which might come back to haunt the retired colonel at the ballot.
But it has to be recorded that his statement that Zanu PF holds the keys to meaningful development is laughable to say the least.
Last week this newspaper revealed how it has taken Robert Sinyoka Primary School, near Old Pumula, 86 years to have power connected to the school.
The electricity connection was courtesy of a non-governmental organisation and not Zanu PF. We are certainly not political fools.
